As cities grow in size, number and complexity, city services become more and more stressed to their limits—and sometimes beyond these limits. In an increasingly global business environment, cities are competing harder than ever before to attract the investment, business and skilled labor that create employment, foster innovation and generate wealth. In order to maintain a safe and properly functioning community, the urban environment requires monitoring that is aimed at providing efficient and effective protection from crime and terrorism, maintaining safe, flowing traffic, and facilitate efficient and fast provision of various municipal services.
There are known urban monitoring systems. For example, many cities and municipalities maintain a network of cameras to monitor traffic and public spaces. Such systems typically rely on human operators who are located in the monitoring center, and watch live video feeds from various cameras presented to the operators on one or a plurality of screens. Detection of anomalies (e.g., traffic accidents, traffic congestion, hazardous traffic conditions, riots, criminal activities, etc.) is typically performed manually by the operators, who then direct forces (such as, for example, police or medical forces) to the scene of the detected anomaly or otherwise respond (e.g., changing the way traffic lights operate to prioritize the flow of traffic in a specific direction).
Recently a more sophisticated monitoring system was developed, which incorporates data gathered from various sensor networks, automatic processing to detect events of interest, and smart presentation of raw and processed information to one or a plurality of operators, so as to present a broader picture of the monitored zone.